new machine

I've been saving my discover card cash back reward for a few years. Once i started sewing and quilting again, i decided it was time to get a machine for quilting. I have my little Brothers (old Brother and New Brother) and they are great but it is hard to quilt tops on them - there just isn't enough room.

I horded my savings and found a little more and bought myself a quilting machine - a midarm Brother (PS1500 if you are interested). I love it!

For my first mission, I decided to quilt a top my best buddy made - this is her first quilt!

 The long neck on Bobby (as my bestie named him) can hold a lot of quilt. I had no problem working my way around this top - it is 4x6 feet in size.

 I laid it out when I finished to see how it looked. The meandering really gives the top a nice texture and sets off the colors. The quilt looks fresh and alive. Who knew this was my bestie's first quilt?

And, of course, Mimi had to come try the top out. She is currently sleeping on it. I need to do the binding and it is all set!

march beejeebers

This is my color mock up for my Beejeebers block for the month - pretty sweet, right? The collected blocks will be put together to look a little like this quilt from Red Pepper Quilts - lovely, eh?

Part of the challenge is to use 48 different fabrics! I have 46 in here - two are fussy cuts from a space-themed fabric and two are from a large scale flower print that doesn't look too similar. The white with little dots will go for the final version and I started chopping the white up tonight to make HST and little squares. The block finishes at 16", so another big block month for Beejeebers! A few members already have blocks done - wowsers!

beejeebers, twister block done!

I finished up my block for Beejeebers this afternoon. With the snow, my morning class was cancelled so I didn't have a lot of work to do. I'm pretending this is on time since February is a short month :)

Here is the final product. This took HOURS!! I spent about half the time tearing things out, a quarter sewing, and the rest trying to figure out if I was using the right white. I love having the option of 10000 different shades of white for sewing, but come on... sometimes I need a break!

This is also the biggest block I've ever made! Good thing since I'm making this for March Beejeebers!